Do words have kunyomi and onyomi readings, or is that just characters?

2 comments

1. That’s just the characters.

   Let’s use 子 as an example.

   Kunyomi：ko, ne

   Onyomi: shi, su, tsu

   These are just the sounds it CAN make… think of it like “C” can say “kuh” or “ss” or “A” can say “ah” or “ay”

   So some words containing 子 would be things like

   息子：Musuko：Son

   帽子：Boushi：Hat

   椅子：Isu：Chair

   Here you can see 子 making most of its different sounds. But for each combination those sounds cannot be exchanged out.

   息子 will always be “musuko”, 椅子 will always be “isu”, 帽子 will always be “boushi”.

   Think of it like spelling. 🙂

2. A few words can be be pronounced both ways (like 神風 = かみかぜ or しんぷう), but they’re pretty rare.